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Climbing and the classroom: The Colorado Mountain Club's Youth Education Program

By Chris Weidner, For the Camera

Posted:
05/21/2013 10:12:28 PM MDT

Updated:
05/21/2013 10:14:43 PM MDT

Carrley Smith, a seventh-grader at Casey Middle School, on Simple Simon Slab (5.6) in Eldorado Canyon. This was her first outdoor rock climb and, judging by her enthusiasm, certainly not her last.
(Photo by Chris Weidner)

If you go

What: A fundraiser for the CMC's Youth Education Program, with food, beer and live music

I stumbled upon my life's passion as a lucky 13-year-old at a summer camp in Washington state. Thanks to a six-story-tall boulder plopped in the middle of camp property, I had a chance to try my hand at rock climbing.

Back in 1988, few teenagers had access to indoor gyms or climbing instruction of any kind. In fact, climbing itself was still ... weird.

Twenty-five years later, climbing is practically mainstream, especially in Colorado. All four of Boulder's climbing gyms offer summertime youth climbing camps. Kids, it seems, have plenty of opportunity to climb rocks and, perhaps, to discover themselves.

Or do they?

Unfortunately, that depends where kids and their families lie on the social spectrum. Rock climbing tends to be tres exclusive, favoring folks with expendable incomes and/or lots of free time. The penniless "dirtbag climber" stereotype is largely a myth.

So how can we give underprivileged kids on the Front Range the same chance I had: to climb in my own backyard?

One way is through the tremendously successful Youth Education Program at the Colorado Mountain Club.

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"We basically do everything in our power to help urban, low-income youth access the mountains," said Melanie Leggett, the CMC's youth education director.

The Youth Education Program teaches curriculum that complements math and science classes already taken in school. Subjects include climbing-related geology, biology or physics, avalanche science, altitude physiology and watershed ecology, to name a few. Classes are taught at K-12 schools in seven local counties, at the American Mountaineering Center in Golden and in the field.

Chris Weidner
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Last Thursday, I joined a Youth Education Program field trip to Eldorado Canyon with 22 students from Boulder's Casey Middle School. Science came first as the fidgety students studied the physics of climbing next to giant sandstone boulders and quartzite crags. The rush of South Boulder Creek accompanied friction experiments played out on various rock types.

Next came the climbing, and a palpable surge in energy.

"This was my first climb outside on real rocks," said Carrley Smith, a seventh-grader who had just been lowered back to the ground. "It's a lot different than indoor climbing 'cause you have to, like, find the holds. I think it's a lot more fun."

Lucas Sawyer is another seventh-grader who had just touched down. "I love being out on the rock," he said. "And just being up high and challenging myself."

One of the greatest aspects of the Youth Education Program is its adaptable outreach to urban schools. Earlier this year, for example, program staff members arranged to meet students of one Denver school at the REI store for a climbing class. To save money on transportation, the students walked to their field trip. In other cases, Youth Education Program staff members traveled to schools to prep them for a field trip to maximize climbing time.

The CMC is also committed to financial aid and scholarships. Casey Middle School, for example, didn't pay for last week's program that I attended.

"For the past two years at least, everyone who has applied for scholarships has been given some kind of financial aid," Leggett said. Last year alone, the CMC awarded $22,641 in need-based scholarships to 2,688 kids.

"Without the supportive funding that CMC is able to offer our (underprivileged) Outdoor Club members, their understanding of what lies beyond the I-25 corridor would ... be limited to the Discovery Channel or non-fiction texts," wrote Jack Chambers III, a third-grade teacher at Denver's McElwain Elementary School.

Elizabeth Williams is program director for Big City Mountaineers, an outdoor program for under-resourced teens that partners with the CMC. After a Youth Education Program class last year, she said, "The best part for me was when one of our students, Danni, came down from the climb and said, 'I didn't think I could do that. I feel really good about myself.'"

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